“Inventor of email” appeals ruling that tossed his libel suit against Techdirt

Tech news site says Shiva Ayyadurai is a "fake," he says it "disregarded" the truth.

Enlarge/ A booth in support of Shiva Ayyadurai, who is running against Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), displays an 'Photoshopped' image of Warren wearing a Native American headdress inside the Conservative Political Action Conference Hub at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center February 23, 2018 in National Harbor, Maryland.

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Lawyers representing the Massachusetts man who for years has made a highly controversial claim that he invented email have filed their appeal in an ongoing lawsuit brought against the tech news site Techdirt.

In the lower court ruling, US District Judge F. Dennis Saylor found that because it is impossible to define precisely and specifically what email is, Ayyadurai's "claim is incapable of being proved true or false."

In a Thursday filing, Ayyadurai’s lawyers argued that Techdirt previously published articles and comments that contained numerous antagonistic words used to describe Ayyadurai—a "fraud," a "charlatan," a "liar," a "fake"—that a "reasonable reader" would find as asserting a factual statement rather than a protected opinion. Because of this, Ayyadurai's team believes, Techdirt's work can constitute defamation.

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The appeal also argues that because Techdirt disregarded "extensive factual evidence," the publication "consciously disregarded" the truth and knowingly acted with "actual malice." Based on that, Ayyadurai and his attorneys claim, the case should be allowed to go forward.

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Cyrus Farivar
Cyrus is a Senior Tech Policy Reporter at Ars Technica, and is also a radio producer and author. His latest book, Habeas Data, about the legal cases over the last 50 years that have had an outsized impact on surveillance and privacy law in America, is out now from Melville House. He is based in Oakland, California. Emailcyrus.farivar@arstechnica.com//Twitter@cfarivar